Negar Mottahedeh is a cultural critic and film theorist specializing in interdisciplinary and feminist contributions to the fields of Middle Eastern Studies and Film Studies.[1]

Negar Mottahedeh in 2017.
Negar Mottahedeh at 2010 on "The Future of Learning is the Web" at Elon University. In the background is Mark Anthony Neal also of Duke University.

Early life

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She is known for her work on Iranian Cinema, but has also published on the history of reform and revolution, on `Abdu'l-Baha's vision of human solidarity and peace in the 20th Century, on Bábism, Qajar history, performance traditions in Iran, the history of technology, visual theory, Majid Tavakoli and the Men in Scarves Movement (also known as the "I am Majid" campaign),[2] and the role of social media in the 2009–2010 Iranian election protests.[3][4][5] With the publication of #iranelection: Hashtag Solidarity and the Transformation of online life in 2015,[6] she expanded her focus to the cultures and practices of the web, writing on the political efficacy of selfies, memes and gifs in The Hill (2017),[7] and pieces on internet security and Iranian hacker culture on WIRED's platform Backchannel (2017).[8] She also wrote articles for Observer, covering the effects of President Trump's travel ban, and the persecution of the Jews and the Baháʼí (2017).[9]

She received her Ph.D. in 1998 from the University of Minnesota. She has taught at the Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, and in 2002 began teaching at Duke University, where she is associate professor in the Program in Literature and in the Women's Studies Program. Mottahedeh curated the "Reel Evil: Films from the Axis of Evil"[10] film festival with Miriam Cooke in 2003 and created Brainquake with Golbarg Bashi in response to Boobquake on April 26, 2010.[11]

Publications

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Books

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  • Negar, Mottahedeh (2008). Displaced Allegories: Post-Revolutionary Iranian Cinema. Duke University Press Books. p. 216. ISBN 978-0-822-34275-5. Retrieved 2023-03-14.
  • Negar, Mottahedeh (2008). Representing the Unpresentable: Historical Images of National Reform from the Qajars to the Islamic Republic of Iran (Gender, Culture, and Politics in the Middle East). Syracuse University Press. p. 278. ISBN 978-0-815-63179-8. Retrieved 2023-03-14.
  • ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's Journey West: The Course of Human Solidarity. Editor. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. ISBN 978-1-137-03200-3
  • #iranelection: Hashtag Solidarity and the Transformation of Online Life. Stanford University Press, 2015.[12][13] Winner of Abu Aardvark 2015 Middle East Book Award.[14]
  • Mottahedeh, Negar (2008). Nationalizing Sense Perception. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-8119-8.
  • After Oil, 2016 (Contributing author)
  • Mottahedeh, Negar (2013). Representations: Metaphors of the Female Body: Overview. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-13247-4.
  • Negar, Mottahedeh (2019). Whisper Tapes: Kate Millett in Iran. Stanford Briefs. p. 88. ISBN 978-1-503-60986-0. Retrieved 2023-03-14.

Articles

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Journalism

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Other

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  • Co-curated with Hamid Dabashi and La Frances Hui the Asia Society's tribute to the silenced Iranian director Jafar Panahi (February 25-March 11, 2011).[15]
  • "Where the Future Nests: 19th Century Babi and Bahai Photography." Lecture hosted by the Ezri Center for Iran & Persian Gulf Studies at the University of Haifa (April 23, 2009); revised for the "Intellectual Othering and the Bahai Question in Iran" in Toronto (July 2, 2011). Archived at Baháʼí Library Online.
  • "Negative Refractions: Recent feminist writing on the Middle East." Women's Studies Quarterly (Winter 2006).
  • Review of "Abbas Kiarostami" by Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa and Jonathan Rosenbaum". Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 29:3 (August 2009).
  • Review of "The Making of a Rebel Filmmaker: Makhmalbaf at Large by Hamid Dabashi". (Winter 2009).
  • Review of Ed. Richard Tapper, "The New Iranian Cinema: Politics, Representation, and Identity". Iranian Studies 38:2 (June 2005), pp. 341–344.
  • Review of "Iranian Islam: The Concept of the Individual by Nader Ahmadi and Fereshteh Ahmadi". Iranian Studies 33:1-2 (2005).
  • Review of Hamid Naficy, "An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Diasporic Filmmaking". Iranian Studies 36:3 (2004).

Awards

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  • Persian Heritage Foundation "Latifeh Yarshater Award" for Representing the Unpresentable (2008)[16]
  • Persian Heritage Foundation Book Award for Displaced Allegories (2008)[17]
  • Washington Post's Abu Aardvark Middle East Book Award (2015) for #iranelection: Hashtag Solidarity and the Transformation of Online Life.[18]

References

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